The posts in this column are intended as an episode-by-episode guide to the many unexplained New Orleans references in HBO’s “Treme,” which premiered April 11, 2010.

Paul Schiraldi/HBOMichiel Huisman and Lucia Micarelli in 'Treme.'

It contains spoilers, but also a lot of information and links that might help viewers of the series better understand the show’s characters and stories, as well as the city and time period in which it’s set.

The density of local references in "Treme" demanded a team effort. This post is a revised version of a post that originally appeared the night of the episode's premiere, May 16, 2010, and it incorporates contributions from and observations by viewers who commented below or on another www.NOLA.com post -- find it here -- that asked readers to write mini-reviews of the episode.

For starters, review a comprehensive archive of the Times-Picayune’s Katrina coverage, including an animated map of the levee failures. In addition, these books, links,CDs, DVDs and streams might prove helpful. Also, go deep into the musical culture celebrated throughout "Treme" at www.AmericanRoutes.org. The website for Nick Spitzer's American Public Media radio series, produced in New Orleans, has a searchable archive, and holds hundreds of hours of informative, pleasurable listening.

The episode's teleplay is by Tom Piazza. The director is Brad Anderson, who has directed episodes of “Fringe,” “The Wire” and “The Shield.”

WYES-Channel 12 is a New Orleans Public Broadcasting Service affiliate.

In addition to the real-world precedent for Davis McAlary’s campaign linked to in “Treme explained: ‘Shame, Shame, Shame,’” there was also Davis Rogan’s similar 2003 campaign for the Louisiana House of Representatives. According to this account by Bunny Matthews in New Orleans’ Offbeat Magazine, Rogan -- a DJ, musician, “Treme” consultant and writer and inspiration for the McAlary character – ran for office after being fired from his DJ shift at WWOZ FM-90.7 (for playing hip-hop, not for overseeing an on-air chicken sacrifice). His platform (according to a statement released by Davis quoted in Matthews’ piece): “I’ll legalize marijuana in bars, tax it and use the money to fix the streets. I call this ‘Pot for Potholes.’ We’ll legalize a red light district and use that money for funding education: ‘Ho’s for Schools.’”

“Always for pleasure” surfaces again. Referenced in the “Treme” premiere (in the bar before the show-opening second line) and at the end of episode four by Antoine Batiste to his bus seatmate, it’s the title of Les Blank’s 1978 documentary about New Orleans music.

Lee Circle is a New Orleans landmark on St. Charles Avenue in the Central Business District. It’s on the St. Charles streetcar line and also on the main Mardi Gras parade route. Since 1884, a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee has stood atop a tall column in the center of the circular park.

Lee Allen (1926-1994) was a New Orleans tenor saxophone player whose work can be heard on recordings by Fats Domino, Little Richard, Lloyd Price (and in his later years) The Stray Cats and The Blasters. His song “Walking with Mr. Lee” charted in 1958.

New Orleans City CouncilDistrict C includes the Faubourg Treme, Faubourg Marigny, French Quarter and West Bank sectors of the city.

Also influenced by Spanish law, Louisiana’s legal system is based on the Napoleonic Code – which is also referenced in “A Streetcar Named Desire” -- established in France in 1804 and titled for its namesake emperor in 1807. “The resulting system of ‘civil law’ in the state differs from the other 49 states' ‘common-law’ traditions in terms of methodology,” says a 2005 www.Slate.com piece by Daniel Engber. This article, in the online encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer culture, seems to clarify some of McAlary’s statements about the code’s treatment of homosexuality.

Debuting in the New Orleans area during the late 1800s, zippy, stone-ground Creole mustard was one of Emile Zatarain’s earliest products. It’s great on pork chops. Buy it here.

The songs Harrison suggests are “Iko-Iko,” “Mardi Gras Mambo” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.” “Iko” describes Mardi Gras Indian parading activity, and was a hit for The Dixie Cups in 1965. (Harrison’s band plays an instrumental version later in the episode.) A seasonal favorite in New Orleans, “Mambo” is a mid-1950s song best known for its version by The Hawkettes.

In the Arizona club scene, does Donald Harrison snap his fingers on “1” and “3”?

NOPD runaway Jim Dietrich, interviewed by Toni Bernette in Texas, was one of many. “Eventually, 91 officers resigned or retired, and another 228 have been investigated for leaving their posts without permission,” said a December 2005 story by Times-Picayune reporters Michael Perlstein and Trymaine Lee, recounting the NOPD’s post-Katrina performance. Many New Orleans viewers will notice the haunting resemblance between the actor who plays Dietrich and Sgt. Paul Accardo, who committed suicide by handgun in an unmarked police car a few days after the storm. Dietrich is played by New Orleans actor Michael Aaron Santos.

Nashville and Tchoupitoulas is an intersection near the Mississippi River a few blocks from Patois, the New Orleans restaurant (at 6078 Laurel Street, or the corner of Laurel and Webster streets) where the Desautel’s restaurant scenes are filmed.

“In December 2005 the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic and Assistance Foundation created our own version of the WPA, believing (as we still do) that for New Orleans musicians a vital mental health initiative is to be paid to perform, and for our community, hearing New Orleans music is the heartbeat of our recovery,” says Bethany Bultman, director of the foundation. “We wanted to make sure that when donors gave us money, it would go into the pockets of those musicians struggling to keep the music alive, not sit in the bank. $100 per musician per gig seemed like the most equitable way to distribute donations.”

Barq’s Root Beer is a favorite New Orleans beverage -- best consumed in bottles -- that goes with everything. Creighton Bernette was fortifying himself with one as he recorded his first YouTube rant. The Barq’s Brothers Bottling Company was founded in the French Quarter in 1890. Coca-Cola acquired the brand in 1995.

The moderator of the candidates forum is Peggy Scott Laborde, New Orleans author and host of the weekly arts-and-entertainment roundtable “Steppin’ Out,” which airs Fridays at 6:30 p.m. on New Orleans PBS affiliate WYES-Channel 12, where the forum scenes were filmed.

In the bar watching the candidates forum with Davis is Coco Robicheaux, who sacrificed the chicken in episode two.

Kermit Ruffins tips Antoine Batiste to a Carnival ball gig. Carnival season runs from January 6 through Fat Tuesday. Formal balls, at which a court of young maids is presented by a king and queen, pack the social schedule for the duration of the season, which traditionally concludes with the meeting of the courts of Rex and Comus at the conclusion of their Mardi Gras balls.

The Bunch Club is an organization of African American professionals formed in 1917. The group’s 2006 Carnival ball was canceled by Hurricane Katrina flood devastation and its impact on displaced members. In a February 2007 story, the Times-Picayune’s Bruce Nolan saluted the return of the Bunch Club and several similar groups to the New Orleans Carnival scene.

“Tonight at midnight, in the half-light of the Audubon Tea Room, the tuxedoed men of the Bunch Club will formally offer their arms to wives, daughters and goddaughters turned out in their best evening dress. To the applause of 600 guests, they will promenade grandly around the floor as the orchestra plays ‘The Bunch Club Waltz,’ the Carnival highlight for one of the city's older African-American social clubs.

“And a little more healing oxygen will seep back into the life of a beleaguered city.

“This didn't happen last year.

“To be sure, there was a Mardi Gras last year: happy, defiant, even a little heroic. It was mounted with no little hardship by local, mostly white parading krewes with a critical mass of suburban members damaged, but not wiped out, by Hurricane Katrina. Zulu, the premier black parading organization, found enough members on its roster of 600 to fashion a parade.

“But the city's smaller African-American social clubs, with only a few dozen members each, mostly missed last year.

“Now, 17 months after Katrina scattered them, destroyed their homes and all but destroyed their businesses, many more black middle-class New Orleanians have regrouped this year to resume their celebration of Carnival.

“Not only the Bunch, but other groups as well: the Vikings, the Plantation Revelers, the Townsmen, the Original Illinois Club, the Young Men Illinois Club and others.

“They occupy different social niches. But collectively, they are the city's black doctors and lawyers, its merchants, small-business owners, contractors, skilled tradesmen, property managers and post office supervisors -- its middle class once thickly spread across Gentilly and eastern New Orleans.”

Saxophonist Harold “Duke” Dejan, leader of the Olympia Brass Band and a regular performer at Preservation Hall, died in 2002. A Dejan-led rendition of “Basin Street Blues” can be heard in the second hour of this “American Routes” broadcast otherwise dedicated to Tom Waits and Dave Brubeck.

"The problem with Mardi Gras stories," said The Radiators frontman Dave Malone in a 2003 Times-Picayune story, "is that most of the best stories I either can't tell or don't remember."

The story continued:

The RadiatorsThe Radiators.

During their 25-year history, The Radiators have supplied the soundtrack for much Mardi Gras silliness, at weekend gigs and as the house band for the infamous M.O.M.'s Ball , a private, hedonistic affair marked by mandatory costuming and all manner of outlandish behavior. Early balls were staged at bars from downtown to the Lakefront to St. Bernard Parish.

"They had to move every year, because they were never allowed back," Malone said.

Does he recall naked revelers onstage?

"Oh God, yes, much to my wife's chagrin, and my grin," Malone said. "There's so much of that, I can't really narrow it down to any one particular incident. The cops in Arabi used to fight over who got to work the M.O.M.'s Ball . It used to be really low-down, but it's tamed down severely. It's what Mardi Gras should be all about."

The Lake Charles cop who walks Toni to the abandoned NOPD patrol car is Don Yesso, who played kitchen assistant Shorty La Roux in “Frank’s Place.”Yesso got his start as an actor when he met “Frank’s Place” co-creator Hugh Wilson on an airplane. His credits since then include “My Two Dads,” “Guarding Tess,” “Dudley Do-Right,” “K-Ville” and “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans.”

The Mystic Krewe of Spermes is one of several sub-krewes of Krewe du Vieux. Its name is a satirical jab at Hermes, a traditional krewe that parades on the St. Charles Avenue on the Friday before Fat Tuesday.

“While we can not force musicians to take care of themselves, we strongly encourage them to get check-ups before they get sick,” says director Bethany Bultman. “Our goal is to be a partner in each musician's career to ‘prevent death by lifestyle.’ As the producer of the gigs we give preference to those who are NOMC patients. Eighty-five percent of our 2000 patients suffer from one or more chronic conditions: depression, hypertension and diabetes. More than 90 percent of those we care for live on less than $15,000 a year.”

“Treme” threw a benefit for the clinic in March 2010, raising $76,000. A donation link is here.

Davis McAlary salutes college professor and New Orleans blogger Ashley Morris, on whom John Goodman’s Creighton Bernette character is loosely based, during the concluding Krewe du Vieux sequence. For the 2006 parade re-created in this episode, Morris dressed as a street mime and rode on a float themed as a plea to France to buy New Orleans back. Pictures of the 2006 parade, including one of Morris as the character he called Mime-boy. Morris’s post about the parade. An account about what it was like to re-create the parade for “Treme.”

The closing-credits music is "Party Town" by BobbyCharles. HBO's listing of the episode's music is here.